TRENTON — City Council sought the community’s input for how to best move the city forward during a 90-minute, free-flowing “Conversation With Council” dialogue that preceded council’s Thursday evening council meeting.

Dan Dodson of the Majority For a Better Trenton civic organization said the city has to set goals for crime reduction, population growth, school achievement, increasing average income and promoting economic growth. Moving forward in those areas could establish Trenton as a leading city in economic prosperity, according to Dodson, who said Trenton has “a long way to go” to get there.

“We want to think of Trenton not just that it’s OK to live in or as good as Hamilton, but this is where people should want to live,” Dodson said.

City resident Monroe Laremore said, “To cut down on the crime we need to look at these abandoned buildings, and they are ugly to look at.” He suggested the city could use the labor of young college students to help clean up and fix some of the city’s blight properties.

Advertisement

City resident Patrick Hall, who has announced an intention to run for mayor in the city’s next mayoral election, asked council what can the people do to best help City Council serve the needs of the public.

North Ward Councilwoman Marge Caldwell-Wilson said residents could attend City Council meetings and discuss the items on the agenda. “The public when they come up, they barely speak on the agenda,” Caldwell-Wilson said. “It’s frustrating to me, because I hear questions on the Board of Education, things we literally can’t do anything about.”

Council President Phyllis Holly-Ward said residents need to understand that the city is a business.

“The city is an actual business, and I would just love for us to get to the point where we treat it like that,” Holly-Ward said. “It’s not a social service agency.”

City activist Darren “Freedom” Green said, “The biggest problem in this city is that in the last 25 years we’ve had no leadership.”

Green said pastors, in specific, have to do more to help uplift Trenton.

The discussion on moving Trenton forward continued in public comments at Thursday’s regular council meeting, with city Zoning Board of Adjustment member Donald Brokate saying the city should make maximum use of its Inspections Department, which Brokate said is a “cash cow” in generating revenue for the city.

City resident Michael Forker said the truth has to be spoken, even if the truth paints a negative picture of the city. “You could put the Taj Mahal in this town, but if there’s no public safety, no one is going to come,” Forker said.

John Harmon, President and CEO of African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey, said, “We’ve had a rather tumultuous year here in our city, and there’s been a lot of conversation about the mayor’s performance.”

Mayor Tony Mack this summer had his home and City Hall office raided by the FBI, he was arrested on federal extortion charges in September and earlier this month was indicted on six corruption charges, to which the mayor has pleaded not guilty.

Harmon said City Council as the legislative branch of the municipal government has to do its job in working to move the city forward. “We’re entitled to an update on your performance as it relates to the economics of this city,” Harmon told the council members at the regular council meeting.”

“Going forward, I think we can turn this thing around as long as we keep our eyes on the prize,” Councilman Alex Bethea said.

“We are in near-bankruptcy, and I think I’m gonna be optimistic and look to the future and say that even under these circumstances, I think we’re going to make it,” Bethea said. “I think going in the new year we need to collect ourselves … and decide which direction we are going to go and how we are going to get there. If you don’t have a plan, then you plan to fail.”

Residents at the council meeting complimented City Council for hosting “Conversation With Council” and suggested for the council to regularly host such open-public dialogue events.

Mack used to host an open-public “Ask the Mayor” forum on a weekly basis, but the mayor turned it into a private, one-on-one sitdown since his indictment.

About the Author

Sulaiman Abdur-Rahman has been working as a professional journalist since graduating from Temple University in 2007. Prior to his current stint at The Trentonian, Abdur-Rahman worked at The Philadelphia Inquirer and wrote a self-published memoir about his 12-month experience of living in Australia on a spouse visa. Reach the author at sulaiman@trentonian.com
or follow Sulaiman on Twitter: @sabdurr.